Tag: Richard Rohr

1 John 1: The Duality of Joy
1 John 1: The Duality of Joy

Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 18, 2025

Once we are able to experience the duality of God’s ways, God’s justice, mercy, and love, we will want to share the joy that overtakes us.

Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!

Our capacity to live in both this world and the next determines our capacity for joy in God’s duality. Richard Rohr, OFM, writes: Only the non-dual, contemplative mind can hold everything in its wholeness, including both death and resurrection. Rohr further explains that once we can step away from the them-us, black-white, either-or stance, we can better see that God and all of God’s creation has a yes-and rather than a yes-but essence. In his excellent collection of meditations entitled, Rohr points out to us in daily reflections that: Life is hard AND “my yoke is easy,” you are not that important AND “your name is written in heaven,” your life is not about you AND you are about life, you can let go of control AND you can let God’s life flow in you, and you are going to die AND life never ends. Rohr gathers this wonderful collection of introspective considerations under the title of The Common Wonderful. To spend time with these reflections is to invite each of us into God’s wonderful duality in which “death and life are in an eternal embrace”. (Rohr 131-137)

National Catholic Reporter: Vigil after the Las Vegas, USA shooting – The Dos and Don’ts of Handling Compassion Fatigue

Our modern world brings us far too much information to process. We suffer from crisis fatigue and we struggle to sort our emotions as we interact with family, friends, colleagues and strangers. Our world seems smaller and the climate more erratic. Unless we grapple with God’s duality and come to terms with the demands our citizenship in God’s kingdom make on us, we will never fully accept the many gifts of joy God gives us.

We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ.

Today we reflect on the duality of God’s joy, we take in the wonder and mystery of this message, and we turn to one another as we witness to this most wonderful of God’s gifts.

When we compare other translations with The Message version of these verses, we begin to experience the overwhelming joy of God’s duality, and we will want to share this Easter joy with others.

Richard Rohr, OFM. A Spring Within Us: A Book of Daily Meditations. Albuquerque, NM: CAC Publishing, 2016.

Click on the image of the child to learn about finding paths to happiness, or visit: https://innerself.com/content/personal/happiness-and-self-help/self-help/9471-the-paths-to-joy-experiencing-more-joy-in-your-life.html

Visit the Center for Contemplation and Action bookstore for more information about Rohr’s work. A SPRING WITH US and YES, AND are excellent resources. http://store.cac.org/ Also see, EVERYTHING BELONGS.

See this article in THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER on the dos and don’ts as we struggle with compassion fatigue: https://www.ncronline.org/earthbeat/eco-catholic/feeling-crisis-fatigue-here-are-3-dos-and-3-donts
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May 18, 2025

God’s gifts, Richard Rohr, The Common Wonderful
John 17:20-24: Seek Wholeness – Prayer
John 17:20-24: Seek Wholeness – Prayer

Saturday, December 7, 2024

Philippe de Champaigne: The Last Supper

When Jesus speaks to his disciples on the evening before his death, he says to the Creator, “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me”.

This past week we have considered the idea of Wholeness in Christ: how we find it, how we achieve it, how we are transformed through it. Today we reflect on words from Richard Rohr, OFM.

From A Spring Within Us: “Wholeness doesn’t really overcome the problem, but holds it and transforms it as Jesus did on the cross. As Carl Jung said, most of the great problems of life are never resolved; they’re just outgrown.

“Wholeness holds you. You can’t figure this out ahead of time or fully choose this wholeness; you fall into it when you stop excluding. And you are changed in the process. Everything belongs, even the ‘bad’ and dark parts of yourself. Nothing needs to be rejected or denied. No one needs to be hated. No one needs to be excommunicated, shunned, or eliminated. You don’t have time for that anymore”. (Rohr 353)

James Tissot: The Holy Women

When we allow ourselves and others the freedom to choose wholeness, we discover the truth that Christ’s love for us overcomes all harm. When we enact Christ through our own Gospel work, we find new hope in new life. And when we open our heart to the Spirit, we open ourselves to prayer that heals, holds and transformation. Rohr helps us to see that when we can hold ourselves in wholeness with him, we no longer judge, no longer exclude, no longer worry and strain at life. At the close of this first week of Advent, we give thanks for the gift of Wholeness in Christ that we too easily take for granted.

When we compare varying translations of these verses, we find the wholeness of belief as we pray with Jesus.

Richard Rohr, OFM. A Spring Within Us: A Book of Daily Meditations. Albuquerque, NM: CAC Publishing, 2016.

Images from: https://www.etsy.com/fi-en/listing/986584298/the-last-supper-meal-jesus-and-apostles and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brooklyn_Museum_-_The_Holy_Women_(Les_femmes_saintes)_-_James_Tissot_-_overall.jpg
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December 7, 2024

newness, Richard Rohr
Ephesians 4: Seek Ripening
Ephesians 4: Seek Ripening

Sunday, November 10, 2024

Richard Rohr, OFM explains that we learn wisdom and have no need to judge others when we allow ourselves to ripen in God’s image, to mature in Christ’s love, to grow in the Spirit’s patience and perseverance.

“If we are to speak of a spirituality of ripening, we need to recognize that it is always characterized by an increasing tolerance for ambiguity, a growing sense of subtlety, an ever-larger ability to include and allow, and a capacity to live with contradictions and even to love them!” (Rohr 346)

Paul tells the Ephesians, and he tells us: And so we shall all come together to that oneness in our faith and in our knowledge of the Son of God; we shall become mature people, reaching to the very height of Christ’s full stature. (GNT)

God says: You have no need to judge one another. You have no need to point out specks on the eyes of others. You have no need to strain gnats before drinking from the cup I offer you. Do you see yourself swallowing camels or does the log in your eye keep you from discerning your own image? How do you represent me in the world? How do you act as my hands and feet, lips and eyes, heart and mind? My Spirit lives in you to bring you wisdom and patience. My Son lives in you to bring courage and persistence. I live in you to bring you strength and maturity.When you welcome ripening, you will suffer loss but this loss is a gain when you allow me to suffer with you. When you welcome maturity, your desire to protect yourself or to win at all costs will disappear because when you fully welcome me you will learn that with me a loss is a gain and a gain is a loss. When you ripen in me, you never grow old. When you mature in me, you never fear the woes of the world. When you grow in me, there is no limit to your patience and love. Come to me when you worry about gnats and camels, specks and beams, rights and wrongs. Come to me, and you will have need of nothing more, for my love alone is enough.

Today we God offers us an opportunity to seek growth, wisdom and maturity. God calls us to ripen in the Spirit, and to come to full season in Christ.

Image from: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-mcswain/the-sign-of-spiritual-maturity_b_3343274.html

We turn to Luke 6:37-42 and Matthew 23 to remind ourselves of Christ’s warning against judging others.

Enter the words spiritual maturity into the blog search bar to explore other reflections on how we might grow in Christ.

Click on the spiritual path image for a Huffington Post blog post on signs of spiritual maturity.

Richard Rohr, OFM. A Spring Within Us: A Book of Daily Meditations. Albuquerque, NM: CAC Publishing, 2016.
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November 10, 2024

a speck in another’s eye, Christ’s love, gnats and camels, patience, Richard Rohr, spiritual maturity, wisdom
John 14: Seek Presence
John 14: Seek Presence

Saturday, November 9, 2024

With the institution of the gift of Eucharist, Jesus promises that he will remain with us always. Matthew 26:26-28

With the gift of bread and wine as the real presence of Christ, the Spirit dwells in us today. Mark 14: 22-24

With the physical remembrance of transformed bread and wine, of God fulfills the promise to live among us. Luke 22:19-20

With the gift of Eucharist, or Thanksgiving, we have the way to be in the real presence of God. John 14

Richard Rohr, OFM writes: “The Eucharist is an encounter of the heart, knowing Presence through our available presence. In the Eucharist we move beyond mere words or rational thought and go to the place where we don’t talk about the Mystery anymore; we begin to chew on it. Jesus did not say, ‘Think about this’ or ‘Stare at this’ or even ‘Worship this.’ Instead, he said, ‘Eat this!’ It was to be a bodily action and a social action with the group . . . We are the very Body of Christ. We have dignity and power flowing through us in our very naked existence – and everybody else does too – even though most do not know it. This is enough to steer and empower your entire faith life”. (Rohr 299)

We can infer from these verses and Rohr’s words that realizing the true presence of God in our lives will not happen when we are alone in a quiet corner contemplating God’s existence. Rather, we best find God as we act as Christ asks us to act, when we abide in the Spirit as the Spirit urges, and when we agree to become the Body of Christ as God invites us.

Finding the True Presence, then, is more likely when we are moving through our days with Christ ever on our minds and in our hearts, hands, lips and feet. We find the presence of God when we are truly open and thankful. We encounter the presence of God when we remember that Eucharist means Thanksgiving, and when we thank God for all that we have and all we are.

Image from: https://prayerunlimited.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/praying-for-his-presence/

Richard Rohr, OFM. A Spring Within Us: A Book of Daily Meditations. Albuquerque, NM: CAC Publishing, 2016.

When we use the scripture links and drop-down menus to compare varying translations of these verses, we discover the presence of God within.
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November 9, 2024

Eucharist, openness, Richard Rohr
Nehemiah 10: The Agreement
Nehemiah 10: The Agreement

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

How many times do we stumble after we agree to live out Christ’s Law of Love? Yet God forgives us because God loves us still.

Richard Rohr, OFM, writes, “Grace is the Divine Unmerited Generosity that is everywhere available, totally given, usually detected as such, and often undesired. Grace cannot be understood by any ledger of merits and demerits. It cannot be held to any patterns of buying, losing, earning, achieving, or manipulating, which is where, unfortunately, most of us live our lives. Grace is, quite literally, ‘for the taking’. It is God eternally giving away God – for nothing, except the giving itself. Quite simply, to experience grace you must stop all counting!” (Rohr 145)

In today’s Noontime we hear the familiar words of the ancient Covenant Israel agreed to live out. In Nehemiah 10 we see the listing of all those who again agree to live the Law of Moses: priests, Levites, leaders, musicians, workers. Yet, history tells us their story of continual union, lapse, separation and return. It is the same tale we all live for we are creatures of God.

Jesus arrives to bring this law to all those both in and beyond the nation of Israel. This new Law of Love surprises many. Awes multitudes. Disappoints some. Today we have this same returning we see in Nehemiah 10 of the hopeless finding new hope, the broken encountering healing, and the abandoned entering a new home.

Once we stop counting, we find ourselves more open to the grace showered upon us. When we stop accumulating, we find ourselves more aware of the love that embodies us. On the day we stop judging, we find ourselves eager to enter the new covenant of the new law. Let us rejoice with those who sign the new agreement that is old, the new covenant that is eternal, the new Law that is our everlasting rescue.

Richard Rohr, OFM. A Spring Within Us: A Book of Daily Meditations. Albuquerque, NM: CAC Publishing, 2016.

For a resource of verses on love, click on the image above or visit: http://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/debbie-mcdaniel/50-verses-of-love-to-cover-any-shade-of-grey.html
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October 1, 2024

God’s grace, hope, Jesus as the law, Law of Love, Mosaic Covenant, Richard Rohr
John 8:1-11: Contemplating God’s Mercy
John 8:1-11: Contemplating God’s Mercy

Tuesday, August 6, 2024

“God is a riverbed of mercy that underlies all the flotsam and jetsam that flows over it and soon passes away. It is vast, silent, restful, and resourceful, and it receives and also releases all the comings and goings. It is awareness itself (as opposed to judgement), and awareness is not the same as ‘thinking’. It refuses to be pulled into the emotional and mental tugs-of-war that form most of human life. To look out from this untouchable silence is what we mean by contemplation”. (Rohr 187)

Richard Rohr, OFM, tells us that if there is one characteristic to assign to God, it is mercy. This life-giving quality of forgiveness, fidelity, and love is God’s signature characteristic. Rohr quotes St. Teresa of Ávila from her book THE INTERIOR CASTLE. “The soul is spacious, plentiful, and its amplitude is impossible to exaggerate . . . the sun her radiates to every part . . . and nothing can diminish its beauty”. Rohr continues, “This is your soul. It is God-in-you. This is your True Self”. (Rohr 187)

Pope Francis tells us that THE NAME OF GOD IS MERCY in his signature work published in 2016. He, like Rohr and St. Teresa, reminds us that in order to understand and experience mercy, we must first acknowledge that we are in need of mercy ourselves. Just as Jesus forgives the condemned woman in John 8, God wants to forgive each of us. Just as Jesus does not reproach the woman in John 8, God refuses to reproach each of us. Just as Jesus contemplates the possibility that God’s kingdom is now, God gives us the gift of mercy and insists that the kingdom is here.

“We live in a society that encourages us to discard the habit of recognizing and assuming our responsibilities: It is always others who make mistakes. It is always others who are immoral. It’s always someone else’s fault, never our own”. (Pope Francis, 2)

We live in a place and time when blame and fault are assigned, credit is taken, and deep divisions grow. We live in a place and time when mercy and love are needed, stories are believed, and bridges are built over deep chasms. St. Teresa, Rohr and Pope Francis tell us that God is a riverbed of mercy. They remind us that God’s generosity and love have no bounds. Once we begin to contemplate God as seen through the actions of Jesus, we know all of this to be true. Once we allow God’s Spirit to enter our lives, we allow ourselves to slide into the mighty flow of mercy that washes away all that separates us.

Richard Rohr, OFM. A Spring Within Us: A Book of Daily Meditations. Albuquerque, NM: CAC Publishing, 2016.

Pope Francis, THE NAME OF GOD IS MERCY: A Conversation with Andrea Tornielli

Image from: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017G7IVTG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
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August 6, 2024

fidelity, forgiveness, love, Pope Francis, Richard Rohr, Teresa of Avila, The Name of God is Mercy
Proverbs 15: God Misses Nothing
Proverbs 15: God Misses Nothing

Sunday, July 21, 2024

Too many Christians live their days and struggle through their nights worrying over their sins. They parse definitions, arguing about the meaning of original sin, and so they miss the gift of original grace God gives us each day. The writer of Proverbs suggests God’s goodness.

A gentle response defuses anger,
    but a sharp tongue kindles a temper-fire.

But lest we believe that we might behave badly without God knowing, the writer also reminds us that

God doesn’t miss a thing—
    God is alert to good and evil alike.

We find references to God’s disgust, anger, and maintenance of distance from humans; but as New Testament people we know that what God desires more from us. God asks that we love our enemies because loving our friends is not enough. And through all our daily interactions with family, friends and colleagues, we remember that God is always with us in a warm and loving embrace . . . even if we do not feel this presence.

Last week, Richard Rohr, OFM, posed to the readers of his daily reflections that beautiful promise that, “Jesus came to give us the courage to tryst and allow our inherent union with God, and he modeled it for us in this world. Union is not merely a place we go to later – if we are good. It is a place of deep goodness that we naturally exist inside of – now”. (Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation. Web. 28 July 2017.)

Even hell holds no secrets from God—
    do you think God can’t read human hearts?

Today we have an opportunity to examine our relationship with God and those whom God has created, knowing that God misses nothing.

When we use the scripture link and drop-down menus to explore these verses, we find opportunities to draw nearer to God, knowing that God reads all hearts, and invites all to live in divine union.

Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation. Web. 28 July 2017. <https://cac.org/category/daily-meditations/2017/07/>

Image from: https://www.pinterest.com/mnck4/god-aint-blind/
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July 21, 2024

divine union, patience, relationship with God, Richard Rohr
1 Corinthians 12: Trinity in Us
1 Corinthians 12: Trinity as Creation, Trinity in Us

Manet: The Angels at Christ’s Tomb (Inspired by El Greco’s Holy Trinity)

Thursday, June 13, 2024

We continue with commentary by Richard Rohr and Mike Morrell in THE DIVINE DANCE. “God’s goal, it seems to me . . . is the making of persons, not the making of a uniform mob, which means there is clear diversity and a kind of what I’m going to call open-endedness in all of nature, and to the very nature of this creation. In other words, heaven is precisely not uniformity”. (Rohr and Morrell 61)

We see great variety in God’s plant and animal life that surrounds us; and each year we discover and classify thousands of new species. How is it possible for us to believe that God wants us to walk in lock step along The Way Christ shows us? Why would God who loves great change and multiplicity want to stifle creation by crushing it into uniformity? Might we see that this triune God calls us to the same variation we see in God’s three persons as one?

I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together.

Today we examine the idea that God’s creation is a reflection of God’s own multiplicity, and when we consider varying translations of these verses, we also consider the effects of God’s goodness and generosity in our lives. Tomorrow, the law of three.

For more on the connection between Manet and El Greco, visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_El_Greco

Rohr, Richard with Mike Morrell. THE DIVINE DANCE: THE TRINITY AND YOUR TRANSFORMATION. New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2016. Print.

For more on the species we discover each day, visit: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/new-animal-species
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June 13, 2024

diversity, Law of Three, Richard Rohr
1 Corinthians 12: Trinity as Diversity
1 Corinthians 12: Trinity as Diversity

El Greco: The Holy Trinity

Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Richard Rohr and Mike Morrell, bring us a vision of the Trinity that may surprise us. “One of the most wonderful things I find in this naming of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is its affirmation that there is an intrinsic plurality to goodness . . . Goodness isn’t sameness. Goodness, to be goodness, needs contrast and tension, not perfect uniformity. If Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all God yet clearly different, and we embrace this differentiation, resisting the temptation to blend them into some kind of amorphous blob, then there are at least three shapes to pure goodness”. (Rohr and Morrell 61)

There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit gives them. There are different ways of serving, but the same Lord is served.

Today we examine a thesis that God’s nature is diverse by intention and not accident. When we explore varying versions of these words, we open ourselves to the possibility of this diversity in God. Tomorrow, God’s diversity in us.

Image from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Trinity_(El_Greco)

Rohr, Richard with Mike Morrell. THE DIVINE DANCE: THE TRINITY AND YOUR TRANSFORMATION. New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2016. Print.
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June 12, 2024

God’s goodness, Richard Rohr